


not until he breaks

by empty_throne



Series: Scent of Blood [4]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Light Sadism, Sensory Deprivation, no actual porn in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 08:00:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3843244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/empty_throne/pseuds/empty_throne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Expansion of the third "five twists of the soul" drabble. Claire suggests Matt tries a stint in a sensory deprivation tank.</p>
            </blockquote>





	not until he breaks

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask how they know Stark. I needed somebody who could plausibly build a sense-dep tank that would actually shut Matt down.

It takes her a full month to argue him around. "It'll help you relax," Claire says--but of course the man people call Daredevil has no interest in relaxing. "You need to get away from it occasionally," she says--but he can no more get away from his self-imposed duty than he can fly by flapping his arms. Finally she digs up some research that shows how time in a sensory deprivation tank improves performance for pilots and other people in high-stress jobs, and that does the trick.

But the first attempt is a failure. "It was like being underwater," Matt complains after he comes out. He doesn't mean the actual water he was floating in. He means the noise, the stimuli that still reached him despite the isolating construction. It will take more than a commercial deprivation tank to shut down Matt Murdock's senses.

Stark builds it as a challenge. When he hands it over, he has a warning for Claire: "You've got a guy whose superpower is sensing things, and you want to take that _away_ from him?" Then he shows her how to monitor Matt's vitals, his heartbeat and his breathing and his brain waves, and Claire doesn't ask him how he built that in when the only thing touching Matt's skin will be the salt water, because she's pretty sure she wouldn't understand the answer.

Matt showers, scrubbing himself from head to toe so as to get rid of the oils on his body, and then walks naked and dripping to the tank. The reek of salt is tremendous, and he grimaces. But he gets in, letting the intense saline solution hold him up, and even smiles at Claire as she closes the door.

His vitals start to spike almost immediately. Not the breathing--he has that under control. But it _is_ control, a conscious effort to keep himself in hand. His pulse races and his brain waves start dancing a polka. It has all the signs of a panic attack.

She should open the tank then. But he doesn't ask her to. And so she stays and watches.

Half an hour of that. Half an hour of watching him panic, of listening to the steady rasp of his breath over the speakers, her own heart going a mile a minute. Then the time is up, and she opens the tank.

He flings himself out in a rush, with none of his usual grace. Salt water spatters everywhere as he slips and sinks to the floor. Now his breathing goes, control abandoned; she hasn't seen him this panicked since his lung collapsed while he was on her couch. "Shhhh, Matt, it's okay, it's okay," she says, drawing him in close, and never mind that she suggested this, she left him in there while he went blind and deaf and she could have let him out but she didn't.

Maybe she wanted to see if he would break.

Maybe she just liked what she saw.

They're terrible thoughts. But knowing that doesn't make them go away. And as she wraps her arms around him, feeling his heartbeat shaking his whole body and his breath hot on her neck, she can't deny the fact that she wants to take him right there, on the floor, his body sticky with salt and the rush of his fear still in him. She'll think of this tonight, when she's alone in her bed, and she'll come harder than she has in years.


End file.
